Twee-ee-eet!

I'm not blogging enough – Twitter is too distracting. So here's some tweets instead.

 

“If Bush v Gore was our time’s Dred Scott, Jan 6 was its Fort Sumter. It seems to me we are now at the beginning of an unconventional civil war.” - https://twitter.com/RavenOnthill/status/1390366839394299904?s=20

 

“Migrant children in Border Control custody has dropped 80%.” – https://twitter.com/Samyann_Writer/status/1389781117809659907?s=20

 

“The reason we have a problem [with the law courts] is that Congress doesn’t want to make those decisions in the first place.” – https://twitter.com/RavenOnthill/status/1389978986336251904?s=20

 

“@DrEricDing [The Indian COVID response] is democide-mass murder by government policy. “Never again. Not now.” – https://twitter.com/RavenOnthill/status/1389417483036020737?s=20

 

“I find American vaccine hesitancy utterly baffling because if you’re born in India, your parents will get you every vaccine they can find. That might be all the healthcare you ever get! It’s not debatable - it’s mandatory if you want to live.” – https://twitter.com/nandelabra/status/1389213277243195393?s=20

The Dada Apocalypse

“Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?” “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Line our pockets, appoint bad judges, try to wreck the Post Office, and …”

The Political Revolution of 2018 and 2020

The socialist Senator Bernard Sanders, as most of my readers probably know, called for a “political revolution.” By this he meant an uprising of young people, leftist intellectuals, and genuinely working-class people who would, by the vote, beat back the rising tide of fascism. He also hoped he could bring along the petite bourgeoisie, the upper middle class whose wealth has been so thoroughly looted by the Republican Party. And, as most of my readers probably also know, he didn’t get one. Sanders was not popular enough with enough people, young people did not turn out, the US working class, after decades of attacks on organized labor, could not turn out enough votes, and the upper middle class, covertly white supremacist, threw in its lot with the truly wealthy despite their depredations, proving that yet again that identity trumps class consciousness.

But the USA did have a political revolution after all. In response to the election of Donald Trump, a coalition of women, young people, and Blacks brought the Democratic Party into control of the House in 2018, and then the Senate and the Presidency in 2020. This was a stunning defeat for the Republican Party. It was also a defeat for the faction of the far left which rejects electoral activism.

So the counter-revolution began

Richard M. Stallman and the Failure of the Free Software Foundation

Over at my sister blog Shinycroak, this, on the leadership of the important and not well understood free software movement.

E-mail Surrender - if you didn't get a reply from me, please resend

Because every bleeping liberal Democratic candidate knows that I will sometimes donate money to liberal Democrats, they have been relentlessly spamming my political email account for over a year. I have just deleted over 1500 begging emails of various sorts. If you have sent me an e-mail I haven't answered, please resend it; it may have gotten lost in the flood.

New policy: if you start spamming me, no matter how fine your cause, I will unsubscribe from your mailing list.

How did we fall so far?

In answer to Jim Wright’s (Stonekettle Station) cri de coeur on Twitter:

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You know, we could be beyond this thing by June. We could. It could be over. Life could return to normal – whatever the hell THAT is nowadays, anyway, but we're not going to be, it's not going to be over, not for a long, long time. Maybe never. Because these ignorant, backward, foolish, selfish, brainless, stupid, fearful, toothless redneck fucks would rather believe insane baseless conspiracy theories from TV pundits and hysterical internet “experts” instead of actual science and actual doctors. That's why.

[…]

Democide in Texas

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“Democide is any actions by government that cause death by virtue of an intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life” – R J Rummel

 

“The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make; not real new things of its own.” – JRR Tolkien

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Despite all Republican and libertarian ideals of freedom, despite all the talk of strength, literal millions in Texas are without power and heat in the bitterest winter in years. There have so far been 13 deaths reported as a result; likely there are more and will be more in the days to come.

How did this happen? Texas is a rich state, an energy producer. It should have no problem maintaining power to its citizens through a cold snap. While global climate change may have contributed to this bitter winter in Texas, it has happened before climate change was so advanced, in 1979 and 2011. Hard winters hit Texas every so often, perhaps every decade or so.